Beyond The pill
Patient Experience Mapping & Design
May 2020 // Allen, Stanton
Get cut-through & new value with a Beyond The Pill approach
In most territories, pharmaceutical (or Pharma) companies are challenged by complex regulatory environments, managed health care systems and an intermediated relationship with those consuming their medical products. Getting real cut-through is difficult. Competition is increasing and primarily attribute (efficacy & safety) based. Therefore, how can Pharma compete differently and win disproportionate market share? The answer is to focus on becoming more patient-centric and to redesign key interactions and engagement points from a “Beyond The Pill” perspective. Here’s how.
What does Beyond The Pill mean?
Pharma is very focused on ‘product’ - the medicines and medical devices sold throughout the world. However, the benefit and impact of those products are generated in an ecosystem of patient, health care provider (HCP), system interactions, structures and processes. Beyond The Pill refers to thinking about the ecosystem of experiences and interactions that a patient goes through from diagnosis of a condition, treatment options and through to remission or cure. It includes considering the role and key interactions of HCPs, family members and other key stakeholders.
Finding ways to compete Beyond The Pill is one of the best ways of changing prescriber and patient behaviour. To do this, wide understanding and consideration of all the actors involved in the diagnosis, treatment and support of patients is critical. This patient-centric approach involves more deeply understanding what drives and motivates patient behaviour and their particular experiences, then designing new ways to engage patients and stakeholders in ways that add value by:
Increasing patient wellbeing and positive outcomes
Empowering carers to more fully understand and therefore participate in a patient’s treatment and recovery
Improving and optimising HCP’s practices making them more effective in treating patients
Provide a hard-to-copy differentiation not based on clinical efficacy
FOUR key elements of Beyond The Pill thinking
Understand and map the experience of patients and HCPs and the key intersection points
Develop new engagement models and services that address key elements of their experience in a way that adds value, cuts costs, reduces time, or increases adherence.
Build a patient-centric culture and set of capabilities to accelerate growth
Use value modelling to understand which specific aspects of the patient/HCP experience to invest in
Working on both the ‘above the line’ - the things your organisation does that people see, experience or buy - and ‘below the line’ - the way your organisation operates - are key to developing a long term competitive edge.
Usually, the best place to start is by mapping the current patient, carer & HCP experience
A solid understanding of the current experience is the foundation of any improvement regime or experience strategy development. Mapping the current experience provides your organisation with a wealth of insights and information and is the basis for designing differentiating experiences and go-to-market strategies. This process goes far beyond customer sentiment and Net Promoter Score (NPS) to look at what it is really like to experience and manage a disease/condition, and what it’s like to engage with, diagnose and treat people - drilling down into what they are thinking and feeling at each interaction. Critically, this process uncovers the key intersection points where patient, carers and HCPs engage - as this is often where Pharma can most positively engage.
To get this level of detail - which is critical in developing an actionable and credible plan - there is a proven method called Experience Mapping (illustrated below).
The output of this process is a detailed and usable set of insights, journey maps and recommendations including:
Patient/HCP Journey Map including key intersection points, pain points and moments that matter.
Deep insights explaining motivations, behaviors and attitudes
Overlay of key econometric data to present where value is potentially being lost or captured along the journey
Key system / regulatory considerations to inform design and decision making
These are a valuable standalone deliverable, but also feed directly into CapFeather’s Target State Experience development work.
Over the last 7 years our people have worked with a number of pharmaceutical companies on becoming more patient centric and thinking beyond the pill.
Rheumatoid Arthritis - Paving the way for a new biologic
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The client had developed a biologic for treating RA and wanted to optimise their market impact at launch. The organisation lacked real insight as to the patient and HCP experience for decision making. The company needed an edge to shift incumbent specialist’s attitudes with regards to a new class of treatment in order to maximise prescription orders and capitalise on their early technology leadership.
THE PROJECT OBJECTIVE
Develop a go-to-market strategy to shift prescriber opinion and behaviour towards prescribing a new class of drug.
THE APPROACH
Determine the key attitudinal and behavioural dispositions of rheumatologists as a baseline
Build a detailed understanding of the current experience of RA patients and doctors
Use the insights and visible intersections between patients and doctors to develop a range of interventions/engagements that enhanced the patient experience and made the doctor’s consulting experience more impactful
Create a detailed target state experience blueprint to guide strategic investment (capabilities)
Develop a set of tactics to support the product’s market launch
Psoriasis - Enhancing the in-market performance
The business challenge
Product X - a high performing, innovative therapy - was not currently being prescribed by doctors at the levels anticipated despite comparable head-to-head efficacy comparisons. The brand was experiencing significant market and revenue pressures and needed to change the go-to-market approach to rectify the issues. The client also recognised they lacked a detailed understanding of the broader patient context and their specific experience in dealing with Psoriasis.
The Project Objective
Develop a deeper understanding of the behavioural and decision drivers of the prescriber to inform a strategic response to this challenge.
The Approach
Research the experience and attitudes of a range of Psoriasis patients, doctors and associated carers
Develop detailed patient/HCP journey maps to understand and articulate the current experience
Develop attitude maps highlighting the perspectives of HCPs and patients
Identify immediate improvement opportunities and construct new value-adds that could be deployed as part of the renewed go-to-market strategy
Co-design the optimal experience strategy
Prioritise and implement based on value yield
Schizophrenia - Improving adherence to drive better outcomes
The business challenge
Our client - the South Korean division of a large multinational Pharma - marketed schizophrenia treatments in a market noted for its structural complexity and negative societal views of mental illness. Like many markets, adherence rates varied significantly across the patient population driven by both system and societal influences. The problem was how to increase product sales as a result of increasing treatment regime adherence.
The Project Objective
Develop a detailed understanding of health system, societal and user behaviours to positively impact adherence rates and achieve higher product sales.
The Approach
Hire local PhD researchers to assist with field research and analysis
Research the experience and attitudes of a range of schizophrenia patients, doctors and associated carers
Investigate the structure and economics of the local health system to understand impacts and drivers of adherence
Develop detailed patient/HCP journey maps to understand and articulate the current experience
Overlaid the health system data
Developed a list of quick wins together with a range of high impact experience innovations that were integrated into the longer term brand plan
Why CapFeather?
We help pharmaceutical companies create defensible value through new and sustainable opportunities that are beyond the immediate horizon.
Ambidexterity - the ability to operate your business now, while acting to operate in the future - is needed for sustained growth. While your team excels at business right now, we help you design the path for its future success.
Our small, expert team partner with your CEO, board and executives to uncover valuable adjacent market positions and exploit them quickly. Unlike other strategy consultants, we believe execution support is critical - so we do more than just build presentation decks. We partner with you at the delivery stage, working to ensure you realise true performance improvements.
Founded in Australia with offices in Europe and the USA, our people have worked across global brands and local organisations, all focused on leading in their market.
